


Clearing Fences

by ingreatwaters



Category: Bath Tangle - Georgette Heyer
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-18
Updated: 2019-12-18
Packaged: 2021-02-26 06:22:49
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,054
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21838915
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ingreatwaters/pseuds/ingreatwaters
Summary: Unexpected domesticity
Comments: 7
Kudos: 76
Collections: Yuletide 2019





	Clearing Fences

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ancarett](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ancarett/gifts).



The breakfast room at Claycross Abbey, a long low room, but lit as well as it can be by the low winter sun, and the Marchioness of Rotherham laughing over a letter brought from the receiving office by the groom who had ridden in early, while her husband stands in the doorway regarding her with one eyebrow raised.

“Your correspondent would appear to amuse you,” he says, walking into the room to join her at the table.

“My correspondent, as you call her, is only Mrs Floore, and I am unsure if she is writing to invite us to Emily’s wedding or to warn us away from it. I believe she thinks it would be unseemly for us to attend to lowly a function as the marriage of a shipyard owner.”

She pours him out his coffee as he speaks - almost her only concession to domesticity.

“So that has finally come off, has it? But is that all your news?”

She looks laughingly at him.

“Not in the least, and if you had not come so late to my table you would have heard it all at the first. The child is a boy, and I have only to decide whether to impose upon him as his sister or to masquerade as his aunt, and to be glad that my name cannot be made over to fit a boy, so that I am safe from that responsibility. He is to be christened William George, they tell me.”

“In the hope of reconciling Claypole? He must surely have become reconciled long ago, if it is ever to happen; he certainly cannot doubt the integrity of his son-in-law."

He pauses, scowls, looks at her again.

“Fanny is well?”

“Very well, Hector says - a little tired, but blooming. Ivo, were you concerned for her?”

“A little, I admit. Her will is stronger than her body.”

“I did not expect that of you.”

“Unworthy of you, Serena. You need never doubt my genuine regard for Fanny.”

“She has done so, often. You must learn to show it without terrifying her! The rest of the letter is only panegyrics on the beauty of the baby, and I will save it from you. You may read Mrs Floore’s letter instead.”

He does so, with twitching lips, looking up to say, “It appears that the great event is not to take place until June, so we have time to grow reconciled to our demotion in status - or Mrs Floore to our presence in her party. Shall we attend, or shall we be on the continent? I believe I would willingly miss even the glories of Switzerland to see Mrs Floore in her glory.”

He expects a reproof, laughing or not, but instead she keeps her eyes on the table, looking, for the first time in his experience of her, almost shy.

“I do not believe that I will be present at any public event in June.”

Both eyebrows rise this time. “I recommend you of all people, not to be missish, Serena.”

“Very well, then. I believe that in June, or close to that time, I will be brought to bed of a child - and even you will admit that it would be a disconcerting thing to happen at a wedding."

"Oh, indeed!" he says.

\---

He finds her later on in the stables, where they so often meet, in silent conversation with a bare-boned hunter.

She looks at him and sighs a little, turning with him to walk in the yard.

"A foolish state to be in in the middle of the hunting season - or a foolish time of year to be in this state. However, I have done without it before."

He looks at her in something close to genuine astonishment.

"I hope you do not believe that I would ask that of you. Ride what you like, Serena!"

"And come down at whatever gate I like? Ivo, I believe I must ask this of myself."

"You must not give up hunting for my sake."

"And end up worse off, out in the field but careful of every jump?"

She walks in silence for a moment.

"You told me, when you were kind enough to ask me to marry you - although I do not think you asked - that you must marry. By which I assume that you meant not any overpowering desire for the state, but that you must have children - that your family must not reach the same end as mine."

She is thoughtful rather than critical, and he refrains from protesting overpowering desire.

"I also promised, if you remember, never to rein you in."

"You ordered me to match you over every gate! But must the child do so, from its earliest moments? Or will you refuse its company until it can?"

"Oh, I expect so, in any case. I do not really see myself with babies crawling round my feet. But I do not despise the duties of marriage, and I promise to be there at the appointed time to admire my children, and to learn by heart a list of suitable things to say, in order not to disappoint my relatives."

She catches her breath on a note of laughter, and turns to look at him.

“Ivo, what shall I do - what shall we do - if we end up with a child like Fanny. A gentle child!”

“Say our prayers, I should think. Serena, you fool, do you consider it at all likely!” He catches her to him, also on the verge of laughter. “More likely we shall be at war a dozen times a day, and you will allow your children to run as wild as you ran as a child.”

“I was never wild - or at least only a little. I could wish nothing better for my children than to be brought up as I was.”

She tucks her arm into his.

"I expect you will also say, nothing worse than to be brought up as I was. I do not suppose that I would recommend it - except that I believe there is something to be said for not being an only child, even if the sister is Augusta."

You rush most bravely on to your fate! We shall both have a great deal to learn, I expect."

"Then we must come through together."


End file.
